Catfish market in chaos as Chinese traders cease buying oversized fish
Vietnamese catfish breeders have seen sales drops as Chinese traders are no longer buying oversized fish bred for the big market.
In previous years, the catfish prices would begin to rise when summer finished, but no one has asked to buy.
The tra fish (catfish) price has dropped to a 5-year low, which is VND4,000-5,000 per kilo lower than earlier this year and VND2,000 per kilo lower than the same period last year.
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Cao Luong Tri, a farmer in Long Xuyen district, said that the Chinese market is unpredictable and poses high risks for farmers.
According to the Vietnam Pangasius Association, Vietnam exported US$100 million worth of catfish to China in the first six months of the year, an increase of 50% compared with the same period last year.
Chinese businesses bought catfish in large quantities earlier this year, including large-size fish, at high prices, and they did not care much about quality examination.
Therefore, many farmers in An Giang, Dong Thap and Can Tho provinces deliberately bred over-size fish to sell to Chinese businesses. But they have unexpectedly stopped.
According to Le Chi Binh, deputy chair of the An Giang Seafood Association, China is a potential but risky market. The problem is that Vietnamese farmers cannot export oversize fish to other markets such as the EU or the US.
In fact, this is not the first time Chinese businesses have played this trick on Vietnamese farmers: offering to buy products at high prices to encourage farmers to organize production in accordance with their requirements and then stopping purchases of the products suddenly.
The same thing is happening with dragon fruit. The price of the fruit has dropped to VND1,500 per kilo, while it was VND30,000 per kilo one month ago, when Chinese businesses sought to buy dragon fruit in large quantities.
Binh Thuan provincial agencies said that Chinese businesses have been, under the names of Vietnamese businesses, illegally seeking profit through trading dragon fruits. The local authorities have imposed fines on 17 Chinese for the activities so far.
In related news, Dan Viet reported that government agencies have denied that US agencies refused a 20-ton consignment of Vietnam’s catfish exports to the market because of prohibited chemical residue.
